This invention relates to camouflage material and, more particularly, to an improved incising arrangement for the material to produce an improved three-dimensional effect.
Camouflage screens are used in civilian and military applications to conceal personnel and equipment from people or animals having geometric and/or color perception. The screen assists in blending objects into the surroundings by providing colors which complement the surroundings and preferably a random profile. The most well known camouflage screens or nets simply consist of a flat multi-colored sheet. However, such camouflage is easily recognized due to its flat two-dimensional surface. Cord netting or fish nets garnished with colored strips, etc. have been used to conceal the flat two-dimensional surface. However, such netting is expensive to manufacture and difficult to maintain.
Camouflage material for civilian and military use has generally been found to be effective where the material has openings and will assume a posture with respect to the equipment or persons being disguised that best simulates the surrounding grass, leaves, other foliage, or the like. According to certain known camouflage methods many slits are cut into a sheet with the slits being disposed alternating in parallel rows. Pulling or stretching the sheet in a direction transverse to the rows of slits produces a mesh-like arrangement of the material with the material surrounded by the slits extending out of the plane of the sheet to produce a somewhat three-dimensional effect. Examples of such camouflage material are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,069,796 to R. G. Ruter, and in U.S. application Ser. No. 113,468 to C. R. Rush filed in Jan. 21, 1980 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,323,605, dated Apr. 6, 1982 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention. Both Ruter and Rush show incising methods wherein the slits or cuts are arranged in rows whereby pulling or stretching the sheet generally perpendicularly to the rows effects projection of the slits out of the plane of the sheet. However, with the slits arranged in defined rows, pulling or stretching the sheet generally parallel to the rows barely results in the three-dimensional effect. Ruter shows an alternate method wherein the slits are of different sizes and randomly displaced across the sheet, but this alternate method still does not permit extenuation of the sheet out of the plane thereof in a uniform manner or equal in all directions. There is a need to solve this problem by providing a camouflage sheet of material which is incised in such a manner as to effect three-dimensional extenuation of the sheet equally in all directions regardless of the direction of pulling or stretching on the sheet.
Another problem with prior incising methods results from the shape of the slits or cuts themselves. In Ruter, the cuts are generally U-shaped and the extenuated U-shaped material portions tend to roll as the material is stretched. The Rush incising method is a considerable improvement over Ruter in that the slits are generally V-shaped. The result of forming V-shaped incising is that a dihedral is formed which causes the incised material to extend away from the plane of the camouflage sheet and become relatively stiff when the sheet is stretched. However, the V-shaped incising method reduces the amount of extenuating material versus the U-shaped incising method. It would be desirable that the individual cuts or slits be of sufficient size to effect substantial extenuation of the sheet but which also does not roll when the sheet is stretched.
The present invention is directed to solving the aforesaid problems of the prior art by providing a new and improved sheet of camouflage material which provides for generally uniform and equal extenuation of the sheet when stretched regardless of the direction of pulling or stretching the sheet, as well as a new and improved incising configuration which provides substantial extenuation without rolling of the material.